Keeper
by K Hanna Korossy
Summary: Route 666 tag story: Sam needs to find someplace safe to stash Dean before he can stand and fight.


**Keeper**  
K Hanna Korossy

Sam Winchester knocked sharply on the door and prowled the porch restlessly, glancing back at the car. He couldn't see anything from that angle, and his eyes traveled further up, to the road they'd just pulled off of. Nothing yet, but there wasn't much time, he could feel it. Shifting impatiently, he knocked again.

There was finally a rattle of a lock being turned, and the door opened. He barely noticed her nightgown or sleep-tousled curls. "Cassie, I need your help."

Cassie frowned at him, opening the door a little wider. "Sam? What's going on?" She suddenly looked more awake. "Where's Dean?"

"He's in the car." A jerk of the head behind him, and her eyes followed the movement. "He's been hurt—Cassie, can I leave him here with you? I need to hide him someplace safe."

"Hide? But—"

"Please." Sam looked at her intently. "It's important."

She examined his face a moment, and nodded. "All right. Can I—"

He was already flying down the steps.

Cassie followed him more tentatively, pulling her robe closer against the night breeze. Another time, Sam might have felt bad waking her this early in the morning, but this wasn't another time. He yanked the Impala door open and crawled in to his brother curled up in the back seat.

Dean's color was still okay, and his breathing sounded almost normal as Sam pulled him out of the car and took him in his arms. The bandage on the head that flopped against Sam's shoulder was showing some red, but Sam had expected that. Dean had hit hard.

Cassie was standing just a few feet behind, and Sam spared her a moment of compassion at the frightened look she was giving Dean. "He's okay," Sam said firmly, mostly believing it. "He just got knocked out." And a little punctured, but if all went well, she'd never have to see that part. "Get the car door."

He heard the Impala's door slam behind him as he hurried up her walk, his gait off from Dean's weight. But Sam had carried more in worse conditions, and he made it up the stairs with a minimum of juggling and only one unconscious moan from Dean. Which, considering the way their night was going, wasn't bad.

"This way." Cassie passed him half-running and pushed a door open for him.

Sam didn't hesitate to turn into the room and head for the rumpled bed, depositing Dean along its nearest side. He quickly set to pulling off his brother's shoes and then easing him out of his jacket, mindful of the bandages hidden underneath.

"What happened?" Cassie had come up next to him and took over undressing Dean, which, Sam thought in an odd moment of hysterical humor, she would have had more experience with than he.

He stepped away, glanced outside the window, then back at her and Dean. "Something's following us."

Her eyes narrowed at him although she kept working, even more gentle with Dean than he would have been. "And when you say some_thing_…"

"…I mean the thing that did that to him."

Her hands slowed. "Sam, my mom's upstairs. If you brought something here—"

He shook his head impatiently. "You're safe, Cassie, I promise. I'm going to draw it away so I can fight it. I just needed to leave him someplace he'd be taken care of." He glanced at Dean, miserably biting his lip for a moment before shaking it off. No time for that now. He met Cassie's eyes again. "Don't change the bandages. Make sure he stays hydrated, and if he's in pain, give him some Tylenol. If he doesn't wake up at all by noon, or if he develops a fever above 102, take him to the hospital. Tell them he just wandered into the yard and you don't know what happened to him. Otherwise…" Sam's jaw worked briefly. "…look after him, okay?"

It was a lot for her to take in, he could see that, but her face softened, especially as she looked down at Dean. Her hand curved along her former lover's face with a tenderness Dean probably would have been embarrassed for Sam to witness. "I can do that," she said quietly.

"Good. I have to go." He started for the door, paused, throwing a look back at Dean before he steeled himself to walk out.

Cassie's light steps hurried after him. "Wait! What about you? Where are you going?"

"I'm luring it away, Cassie. It's not going to rest until I destroy it."

"But—"

At the front door, Sam wheeled on her, and she actually backed up a step. "I'll be back in two days, I promise." His eyes slid up the hallway to the open door, before returning to meet her gaze. "Thank you," he said earnestly.

Her expression melted into a soft wryness. "Now are you surprised I thought he was nuts?"

Sam almost smiled. "Maybe we are." Then he hurried out the door, pulling it shut behind him.

_It_ was closer now, but he had one more task to do. Sam pulled the flask out of his pocket, shaking it to mix the silted salt with the holy water, then opened the bottle. He sprinkled a little on the doorposts and threshold, murmuring a prayer under his breath, then proceeded to make a circle of the house, performing the same tasks at every window and corner. Back at the front, he traded the flask for some oil and made a cross on the door. It wouldn't keep out something determined, but it would be enough of a preventative to make Sam the obvious preference. That, and the gift he had that was quickly becoming a curse.

Nodding to himself, Sam returned both bottles to his pocket and ran down the steps, back to the Impala.

Dean was safe; now it was time to end this.

00000

Dean Winchester started painfully awake.

That wasn't as unusual an event as he would have liked, but it didn't unduly alarm him, either. It only took a moment to make sure he didn't have mortal wounds, although the sickening throb in his head wouldn't make life enjoyable for a while. Next step was assessing where he was, and that did pull him up short in surprise.

He wasn't in a motel room. And he knew this place. Cassie's.

Dean pushed himself up with a deep wince, feeling injured muscles pull along his side and shoulder. But it gave him a vantage point he hadn't had flat on his back. Dean froze as he realized the mound of blankets next to him actually had a person wrapped up in them. He stared at it uncertainly. "Sam?" He sounded weak and in pain, which was annoying but about how he felt.

The sleeper stirred, pushed blankets away. Dean did another double take as Cassie blinked up at him and smiled.

"This is a dream, right? I hit my head and now you're here, but that's impossible, right?"

Cassie sat up with him, smile a little faded. "You hit your head and Sam brought you here. It's not a dream."

Dean stared at her, trying to remember and a little concerned he couldn't. He wasn't even sure what his last memory was, but it almost certainly didn't have Cassie in it. Although, man, she did look beautiful first thing in the morning…

Another shot of pain lanced through his head, and Dean ground his hand into his eyes, feeling the edge of a bandage above them. "Where's Sam?" he asked wearily.

"He's gone."

Dean's head shot up.

She winced. "He said the…thing that hurt you was still coming after you, so he needed to draw it away. He promised he'd be back tomorrow."

Dean cursed under his breath and slid to the edge of the bed. "Where're my clothes?"

"Dean, he said you—"

The wave of nausea was all the warning he had before vertigo struck. Dean thunked hard down on his rear, gritting his teeth against the violent desire to throw up and pass out. His side—and just how was he hurt there, anyway?—competed with his head for the right to torture him. Dean panted through the worst of it, leaning his pounding head back against the edge of the bed.

Cassie had gotten up and run around the bed to kneel by him, her hand warm on his arm. "You ready to go back to bed now?"

"No," he said tersely, but accepted her support as she helped him rise enough to sit on the bed again, then inch back against the headboard.

"You were always so stubborn," she murmured, then maybe realizing this wasn't the best time to be bringing up their history, she stroked his face. "You need to rest, Dean. Sam looked like he knew what he was doing—he'll be back."

She was still in denial, but it wasn't like there was much Dean could do about it. Already he'd used up what meager strength he'd recovered, body shaking with fatigue and weakness. But Sam had left to go face alone whatever it was that had laid Dean out, and that was not a happy thought. Hero complexes ran deep and wide in the Winchester family. Dean would have to knock some sense into Sam when he got back.

He was starting to fall over, or maybe Cassie was easing him down, and Dean didn't care because he wasn't the one who mattered here. The bottom line was that he couldn't back his brother up on this one. _You'd better stay safe and come back, Sammy, _and then he was gone, too.

00000

He nearly drove past before he realized it was exactly what he'd been looking for.

Sam jerked the Impala onto the rutted dirt road, sending a silent apology to his brother as the car bounced along. He'd been driving for hours, trying to put some distance between himself and Dean, but also looking for the right spot to take a stand. The crumbling farmhouse in front of him was it. Dean would forgive him for the car if Sam came back in one piece, and he had every intention of doing so.

The house was set far back from the road, which was good; the last thing Sam needed was to attract attention. Up close, its age and instability was even more obvious, and for a moment he wondered how safe it would be, after all. But despite the tattered roof and sagging porch and broken windows, the house's frame seemed sturdy. It was the kind of place no one cared about or would look in on, and that made it perfect. Sam pulled up at the front door in a cloud of dust, then rushed to the trunk to pull out supplies.

The job the night before should have been just as simple. The mansion had been the local version of a human roach motel: people went in and didn't come back out. The county historical society had actually paid him and Dean a small fee to see if they could rid the place of whatever malevolence haunted it, which Dean wasn't above accepting. Everything had gone according to plan, first unbinding the force from the house so they could confront it, then banishing it with a tried-and-true ritual from Dad's book.

Only, there had been two of them. And the second was not happy about losing his friend.

They might have still been okay if the rising wind hadn't blown the journal out of Sam's hands. He'd lunged for it, and Dean had lunged for him. His brother's quick action had kept Sam in the circle, but Dean had landed partly outside. That was enough. There were claws, and an unyielding wall, and it had been all Sam could do to cast a temporary protection long enough for him to gather his unconscious brother and run. Besides stopping briefly to check on Dean and bandage the bleeding claw punctures and gash on his head, Sam had kept running. Because while the banishment hadn't worked on the second force, the unbinding had, and it was coming.

And it was mad.

Arms full, Sam glanced back at the road, then went inside the house.

He moved cautiously over creaking and broken floor. The door was splintered and hanging, and it was easy to nudge his way inside. There, uncovered windows filled the empty main room with enough light to see the dust and weak spots. Sam picked his way past a hole that seemed to go down into the basement and a few more sagging depressions, until he found a sturdier section of flooring set back a good dozen feet from the front door. This was it.

He couldn't afford any mistakes this time, no Dean there to yank him out of harm's way, and Sam felt a pang of regret. Helping people was good, but the one thing that really made this job tolerable was his brother. To not only be soloing on this one, but to have Dean injured and not even know how he was doing… Sam slipped a hand into his pocket and pulled out his cell, pulling up first Dean's number, then Cassie's. His finger hovered over the call button a moment.

No. He needed to focus and Dean needed to rest. Even if he managed to catch his brother awake, Dean would only rail at him for taking off alone, and Sam didn't need more distractions. What was he going to do, go back now? Dean's support that would inevitably followed the lecture would have been nice, but Sam was a big boy, he could manage without. Besides, the worry Dean would be trying to hide—badly—would only nag at Sam. No. Not until after.

Sam put the phone back and started preparing.

There was the usual salt circle, with the addition of the holy water and oil because this thing had recoiled from God's name. The tin amulet was just a back-up, as was the rosemary and hyssop, because the real work would be done by the ritual itself, the prayers and invocations. Sam found the page he'd used the night before, then settled down cross-legged in the center of the circle, journal in his lap, to wait.

And wait.

The thing was still coming, he could feel it, and there was the same sense of closeness that had chased him to Cassie's and then all the way to the farmhouse. But there was also hesitation now, as if the creature—spirit? force?—sensed a trap. It would come because it wanted him, but it would do it on its own time.

Sam pulled a granola bar from his pocket and ate it, rereading the marked page, then idly those around it. He'd read the journal cover-to-cover more than once, and still found new things in it each time. Who would've guessed his dad had written a classic?

The thing drew near, and Sam looked up at the broken door and silently egged it closer.

Then it withdrew again. Sam's hand closed around the phone in his pocket. If it decided to go after Dean, after all, his brother and Cassie could probably hold out until Sam got there, but it wasn't something he wanted to test. _Not him! _he ordered softly. _You want me._And if whatever power he had would have been his to command, he would have flaunted it for the thing. But it wasn't, just a passive glow inside that usually attracted when he least wanted it to.

Not this time. This time it was a siren call the thing couldn't resist. Sam climbed to his feet, journal clutched in one hand, as the presence approached the house, cautious but not slowing now.

Sam set his feet and waited for it to arrive.

00000

"You should be in bed."

Dean didn't turn from the window and the setting sun it framed. "I should be out there," he said flatly.

Cassie moved up behind him, and two soft and familiar arms wove around his bare waist, just below the bandages covering his left side and shoulder. Her breath was warm on his neck, and Dean closed his eyes for a moment to savor. But even though he was barely on his feet, he refused to lean into her. "I know you don't like sitting around…"

"What I don't like is Sam out there facing this thing by himself. We've already seen what it can do."

Her chin rested lightly on his good shoulder. "You still don't remember what happened?"

Dean's mouth flattened, twitched. "I remember…a house, a big house. Haunted, maybe. I think we were trying to cleanse it." He gave a tiny shrug. "I guess something went wrong."

"But you two face this kind of stuff all the time, right? I mean, Sam was…worried about you, and determined to get this whatever it is, but he didn't seem worried about it."

Dean breathed a laugh. "Sam doesn't worry enough about himself, only other people."

"So, what," she nuzzled his neck, "that's your job?"

"Yeah. It is." Dean turned from the window to face her, hand groping surreptitiously for something to steady himself with because the room kept turning even when he stopped. Her eyes were swimming in his gaze, too, or maybe it wasn't just him, but he looked into them levelly. "He's all I've got left, Cassie."

Her arms slowly slipped off him.

Dean grimaced when she wasn't looking, and not just because his head hurt. "I'm gonna take a walk," he finally said, and moved slowly and stiffly past her, trying not to look as shaky as he felt.

"A walk? But—"

"Just…around the house," he said impatiently.

Dean hung on to weathered boards with one arm all the way around, the bad one tucked into his coat and clenched around his cell phone. He'd almost called Sam more than once, but there was no telling what he'd be interrupting or if he'd be putting his brother in danger, and he wouldn't take the chance. Not even to appease his own gnawing worry. But Dean hated this, hated the idleness and waiting and not knowing. Sitting on the sidelines was bad enough without Sam off in danger somewhere. With his car, even. Talk about having nothing left…

When Dean climbed the porch steps as if the five were five hundred, and Cassie helped him back to bed and spooned herself around him, he found little comfort in her arms.

00000

_The Exorcist _had it more accurately than most TV shows or movies. Not the barfing pea soup or hideous make-up parts, but the exhausting length your average purification rite took.

Sam didn't know how long they'd been engaged in battle, but the room was dark now, his flashlight the only light to read by. And in the corners, the darkness was deep.

He continued the prayer, stopping sometimes to make the sign of the cross or sprinkle the water and hyssop, shouting at times to be heard over the shrieks and storms of a spirit—he'd finally decided it was a spirit—that knew what was happening and was raging to get away now. Sometimes Sam thought it had deafened him, until the blast faded enough for him to hear his cracked and winded voice struggling on through the ritual.

Sometimes the cold or the wind would take his breath away altogether, and he would brace himself to wait it out, wishing wholeheartedly Dean were there.

Not that his brother could have done much about those parts, but there was comfort as well as safety in numbers. Dean's taunts always angered whatever it was they were fighting, and while that was probably what had gotten him in trouble last time, it was also stupidly reassuring. Sam could have used a little reassurance just then.

He'd already gone back to sitting, both to make it easier to keep from falling over from the onslaught, and because his legs had been well on the way to giving out. But Sam's voice rose and fell in the large and empty room, slowly pushing back the darkness until stars shone through overhead. He paused for a moment in his prayer, marveling at the unexpected beauty.

The shrieking rose again. Sam took a swig of water—un-blessed Evian—and kept reciting.

Dean could read longer than he could, too, even if he stumbled more on the Latin than Sam did.

The end was approaching and the black spirit knew it. Sam's voice rose haltingly as the din grew even worse, and he was starting to fear for his hearing. One more sprinkle of holy water, and he really was tired because he nearly used the Evian, then Sam made the sign of the cross with as much gravity as a priest blessing his flock. It wasn't a bad analogy. They'd always done this job more for others than themselves, and for all the grief he gave Dean about not living his own life, Sam admired his brother's selflessness, too. He would have to tell him that at some point. When something wasn't trying to kill him, preferably.

The wind had risen to such force, it nearly knocked him over even seated. This spirit was far more powerful than the other had been, and it was fighting the banishment hard. Sam screamed the last few lines in defiance, then slammed the journal shut.

The noise crescendod, something writhing and with shiny claws struggling at the edges of the thrice-blessed circle to get to him. Sam stared at it with grim anger. "That's what you get for messing with the Winchesters," he said, and grinned. Dean was definitely rubbing off on him.

Something snapped. Wood giving way under gale forces? For the first time, Sam cast a worried glance around, taking in the way the hanging chunks of roof were shaking in the wind. One piece above his head looked particularly unsteady, and Sam looked again at the shrinking darkness in front of him. "Die, already," he yelled at it, and heard another _snap_.

The darkness was pulling into itself, imploding, but so was the roof. Sam waited until the last possible second to throw himself out of the circle to avoid the crashing debris.

The whisper of claws over his skin was too insubstantial now to do damage, but the power of the creature's rage was still fierce. It buffeted Sam with its dying rage, and he curled himself up to protect himself against it.

It couldn't hurt him, but it had enough force left to send him rolling across the floor, right to where the rotting wood gaped holes.

Sam felt himself go over the edge, scrambled for a handhold too late, and fell.

Above him, the darkness lost its battle and the wind whipped once more through the house, then fell still. The house was silent again.

And trying to push himself up off the basement floor onto all fours, Sam collapsed back to the packed earth and lost the fight to a different kind of darkness.

00000

"Nothing," Dean growled, throwing the paper down in a huff.

"What did you expect?" Cassie asked practically, setting down her teacup across the table. " '_Boy Defeats Ghost?' _It's not exactly the kind of news you read about it in the _Gazette." _

"It is if you know what to look for." Dean rubbed his eyes, and gave his arm an experimental twitch. It still hurt bad enough to bring a few choice words to mind, but he could use it if he needed to. If he didn't have to run. Or focus his eyes too long. Or stay on his feet for more than a few minutes. Dean forced himself to concentrate on Cassie. "We get a lot of our jobs from the paper—unexplained deaths, fires, disappearances. You probably print something in our line of work at least once a month."

She gave him a wan smile. "You know, I think I was happier before I knew what was out there."

"Weren't we all," Dean muttered, and rubbed his eyes again. He pulled his hand down when he felt her fingers prying it loose, and stared at Cassie. She unfolded his taut hand, put a pair of pills in his palm.

"Take them," she coaxed. "I can tell your head's about to explode."

Dean couldn't argue that and didn't try, swallowing the pills along with some coffee. He glanced at his watch again. "He should be back by now."

"He said two days—that could be as late as tonight. Try not to worry so much, Dean."

He threw her a glare, reminded again of the gulf between their lives, and shifted in his chair. His side pulled in unpleasant ways, injuries Dean hadn't felt like exploring quite yet. But Cassie was trying to help, had helped a lot, actually. Dean tried to remember that, too, even as worry chewed at him like…well, like an awful lot of hungry things he and Sam had faced. Together.

He fidgeted again, planted his feet to stand. "I'm gonna go look for him."

Cassie gave him an exasperated look. "Where? You don't even know where to start."

"At least I'll _start,_" Dean shot back, knowing how stupid a plan it was but unable to do nothing. "He's not answering his phone, he should've been back by now—it doesn't take this long to cleanse or banish something—he's in trouble, Cass, I can feel it."

"Well, then…" She cast around, trying to think of something for him. "…you should be ready to go if Sam calls you, but if you set out and go the wrong way, you'll just be even farther when Sam needs you."

Dean's face shifted in internal battle.

Cassie slipped off her chair to crouch down beside him. "Besides, he took your car."

Dean winced. "Yeah, he's gonna hear about that one, too."

"Give it one more day. If he's not back by tomorrow, I'll go with you and help you look. Maybe by then you can even stand up without looking like you've just climbed a mountain." Her hand moved soothingly across his chest.

Logic or her smile—he couldn't always tell the difference—calmed him a little, and Dean took a breath, half-smiling back at her. She always knew how to get to him, which he'd never been sure if it was a blessing or a curse. "At dawn," he said quietly, and leaned forward to kiss her.

"Dawn," she agreed, and kissed back.

There was a heavy knock at the door.

They both sprang to their feet as if caught redhanded, Dean feeling a flare of hope, Cassie's face a study of mixed emotions. He didn't pause to sort them out, heading for the door in a determined if slow stride.

Dean reached it just as Cassie did, and belatedly he realized he had no weapon on him. He moved in front of her to open the door.

Sam stood there, weaving, having the audacity to grin at him as his eyes came up and met Dean's. "Hi," he said. Then his knees gave out and he started to go down.

Catching 170 pounds of beanpole was a lot harder with only one good arm. Cassie slipped past Dean to help, and between them they managed to keep Sam's head from colliding with the floor. It looked like it had collided with enough already, scraped liberally on one side. Dean lifted Sam's chin, trying to gauge how bad it was. "Sam?"

His head rolled, exhaustion plain in his eyes as they found Dean again. "'M okay, just…"

"Out on your feet." Dean nodded at Cassie, and the three of them moved back into the house in staggering steps, heading toward the bedroom. "What happened?"

"It's gone."

"Great. What about you?"

"Still here."

Dean huffed in frustration. "We're not text-messaging here, Sam—details?" Sam slumped more heavily against him, which, considering Dean had spent much of the previous day unconscious, was not a pleasant thing. "Okay," he conceded, panting, "details later."

By the time they got Sam on the bed, Dean had to sit down, too, but he conducted his exam with tight-lipped efficiency. For once, though, Sam wasn't exaggerating; he really did seem fine, besides a nice collection of bruises and scratches, and the utter depletion that was already pulling him into sleep. Dean didn't even want to contemplate how Sam had driven—his _baby_—any length of time in that condition. He leaned in to his brother. "My car had better be okay." Once he'd seen Sam, he hadn't even thought to look.

Sam's mouth stretched in a weary but amused smile. "Car's fine. Brother's fine. I love you, too, Dean, but I need to…" _Get some sleep, _apparently, because he was already gone.

Dean fingered the dark hair, looking for blood and finding only dust and dried sweat and—were those splinters? He glanced up to see Cassie smiling at them.

"Not much like you besides the stubborn part, is he?" she asked pleasantly.

He managed a grin, and hugged her wearily close with the arm it hurt to move. "Not much like Dad, either—sometimes I think he was adopted."

He forgot sometimes what music her laughter was. "No, there's definitely blood between you two."

Dean sobered so fast, it was jarring. "Yeah, you could say that." He sighed, leaned his aching head against her stomach. "Thanks for…putting up with all this."

She kissed the top of his head, tilted it gently back so she could meet his eyes, but hers were sober. "You know you're not fooling me, right? You talk about your dad's work, but I know it's Sam you're doing this for now."

He just looked at her, not saying a word.

She leaned down to kiss his lips, lingeringly, then drew herself up and away. "Why don't you lie down for a while? You look almost as tired as your brother and twice as beat-up."

"Sweet-talker," he said, reluctant to let her go. But she was right. He watched her as she circled the bed to draw the shades, then resigned himself to the inevitable and moved with small hitches and gasps to follow her around the bed and eased himself flat.

Cassie kissed his forehead and covered him, then shut the door behind her on the way out.

He didn't need anything to lull him to sleep, but Sam's steady breathing did anyway.

00000

Sam woke slowly, instinctively feeling safe even though his body ached as he stretched. That in itself wasn't so unusual, and he blinked with unworried curiosity at the obviously feminine room around him, not recognizing it, then at his brother sacked out beside him.

"Cassie's room?" Sam murmured.

"Mm-hm," came the muffled reply besides him. Dean opened one eye. "I was gonna share the spare room with her, but she was worried about you."

Sam smiled knowingly. "Oh, _she _was worried about me."

Dean snorted. "Hey, I'd pick her over you to share a bed with any day."

"So, why don't you?" Sam asked, losing most of the smile.

"I just told—"

"That's not what I mean."

"Yeah, well, that's not what I meant, either." Dean pushed himself up on an elbow, wincing as he worked on sitting up.

Sam frowned at him. "How're you doing?"

Dean sat on the edge of the bed, his back to Sam, and reached for a t-shirt. "Oh, great, thanks for asking. My kid brother dumps me and takes my car to fight a demon by himself—what's not to love?"

Sam propped himself up on sore arms. "I'm not a kid anymore, Dean."

"No, even you didn't get in this much trouble when you were little." Dean's voice grew strained as he tried to ease the clothing over his head.

Sam climbed to his knees to help him. "And you were _unconscious, _if I remember correctly. I didn't have a lot of choices."

"I get it, Sam, okay? Doesn't mean I have to like it. And I was serious about what I said—if you dented the car—"

Sam groaned and sat back against the headboard. "How about next time I just send the car back by itself?"

Dean gave him a sour _ha, ha _look. "So, you gonna tell me what happened?"

"Do you remember Blake House?"

"A little. Big place, ticked-off spirit."

"Two of them, actually. We trapped one, the other grabbed you and threw you against a wall."

Dean glanced down at his side.

"Claws," Sam said quietly.

Dean grimaced. "So, you dropped me off here and went to play bait."

"I was going for fisherman, actually."

Dean nodded at his battered face. "Looks like you were the one who got caught."

"It was an old house," Sam said with chagrin. "Took me a while to find a way out of the basement."

Dean decided he wasn't going to ask. "Moral of the story, you wait for me next time. Even if it's just to sleep it off in the car and haul you out of the basement after, got it?"

Sam yawned. "Why don't we just agree there won't be a next time and skip the blood oaths? They never end well."

"Sam," he growled.

"I'm going back to sleep," Sam said, sliding down flat again. "Wake me up when there's something to eat and you're in a better mood. Oh," he suddenly remembered, turning to Dean with half-lidded eyes. "I almost forgot. The devotion to this 'saving lives, helping people' thing? I've always admired that about you, too."

He left Dean staring at him slack-jawed and speechless, and, greatly satisfied, Sam rolled over and went to sleep.

He woke again what seemed like minutes later to the soft clatter of dishes and dimmer light. Sam's vision cleared to see Cassie bending over him, smiling when she saw he was awake.

"Dean said you were hungry—I brought you some supper." She waited until he pushed himself up, and set a covered tray in his lap.

"Uh, thank you." Sam flushed a little at her closeness and his state of undress, which only seemed to amuse her more. He cast around for his brother, and found the bed otherwise empty. "Where's Dean?"

"I…convinced him to take a shower."

He quirked his head curiously. "How?"

A slow grin. "I stole his clothes."

Sam smiled, too. "That stopped him?" The ways his brother's modesty cropped up at unexpected times still amused him.

"I don't think it would have, but my mom was downstairs."

He looked at her with frank admiration. "I think I love you, too."

Cassie laughed and stood. "Maybe you are more like him than I thought."

She was nearly at the door when he called to her, and she turned back. "Thank you for taking care of him," Sam said seriously.

Cassie took a step back toward him. "Actually, I should probably be thanking you. I think I understand him better now." She gave Sam a rueful look. "At least I know now what I lost out to."

Sam gazed back at her, wondering what she'd glimpsed, and if he should try to make a case for Dean. But Dean wouldn't want him to say anything and Sam knew it. He finally just smiled, the tight-lipped kind that was a sad sort of understanding. She returned it, and slipped out of the room.

Dean joined him by the end of the meal, looking wet and tired and annoyed, stealing bites off Sam's plate while he complained about people taking his clothes, and wet bandages, and women in general. Sam finally put an end to it by shoving him half off the bed, which hurt just enough to chasten his older brother. For about two minutes, anyway. Sam nearly dumped him off the bed for real then.

And couldn't help but feel sorry for Cassie, because no matter what she thought, she really didn't know what she was losing out on.

**The End**


End file.
